Battlestar Prime

When the remake of the 1978 series and movie Battlestar Galactica was announced many years ago, actor Dirk Benedict complained that the new show’s producers had changed his cigar-smoking, womanizing character Starbuck into a woman. His written complaints gave the world the immortal line ‘men hand out cigars, women ‘hand out’ babies.’ He was widely ridiculed and everyone agreed that the new Battlestar Galactica was much better.

However, he did have something of a point. The new Battlestar is indeed missing a few things:

- A monkey dressed as a space dog. That’s right, not one monkey dressed in orange carpet studded with bits of metal appeared in the new Battlestar Galactica during its four-season run. They could have at least paid tribute to the original by having a space dog or two loping along in the background during one scene. Blame animal rights groups, who probably propagate ridiculous lies about it being somehow cruel to dress a chimp up as a dog for several years and play it for laughs. They’d probably insist that any monkey-based space dogs be created with heartless CG.

- Homoerotic sports uniforms. If there’s one thing the original Battlestar told us about the alternate future-world BSG was set in, it’s that they liked their awkwardly revealing 80’s style sports uniforms. Instead, new BSG insisted on having people play sport wearing normal-looking uniforms. Their uniforms weren’t even sparkly or particularly skin-tight. And what is sci-fi without awkwardly skin-tight uniforms? Nothing.

- Translation machines called ‘languatrons’! Not one! Instead, everyone just speaks boring English.

If you agree with these deficiencies (and who wouldn’t?) celebrate the old, classic Battlestar Galactica with this retro t-shirt.